


But Consider This

by Deanon



Category: Free!
Genre: First Kiss, Glasses, M/M, pov of a fucking nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2145840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deanon/pseuds/Deanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rei makes a leap of intuition, and a leap of faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Consider This

 

“Reading makes my head hurt,” Nagisa said, his voice muffled by a pillow. Rei’s pillow. Rei looked out the window so that he could focus on things that were not the way his pillow was going to smell like Nagisa’s shampoo; things like how Nagisa had failed _another_ test. He’d promised to help Nagisa study in whatever ways he could, but clearly they needed to come at it from a different direction, and Rei was throwing his full concentration at the problem. “I hate staring at a book for so long, all the words start blurring together into one big lump.”

“Maybe,” Rei said, with determination, “you just have not learned to appreciate the true _beauty_ of acquiring new knowledge – “

“That’s not _it_ , Rei!” Nagisa snapped, with ire that Rei had learned could only be evoked by bringing up his academic shortcomings. He couldn’t _blame_ his friend for being sensitive about it, but being snapped at by him still stung, and Rei fell silent. After a second, Nagisa rolled over and sighed, staring at the ceiling. “Sorry.”

“Your sensitivity is completely justified,” Rei said, which worked better than _I forgive you_ because Nagisa smiled, which was the ideal outcome for anything that Rei said. Rei sat up straighter in his chair and considered, as Nagisa continued babbling.

“It’s just, I spent _so long_ staring at books and I got more and more restless and I started hating reading more and more until soon I didn’t even want to _look_ at a book and reading just made my head hurt more and more all the time, and I _know_ I have to study but it’s like _torture_ , Rei! It’s like the books are _torturing me_ and tests are like those endurance trials we do during swim practice except at the end of them my arms don’t hurt, just my eyes and my head and my _soul_ , Rei, they hurt my soul.” Nagisa flopped over to stare at him, yes, soulfully. He was pouting as though this was somehow Rei’s fault, which, unfairly, made it feel as though actually it _was_ Rei’s fault. Which it was not. Nagisa’s allergy to studying had nothing to do with Rei. If anything, Rei seemed to be one of the few people who _could_ get Nagisa to study.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Rei said, which Nagisa didn’t bother to deny. Nagisa existed in a perpetual state of melodrama. He just rolled over again (why was he taking up all of Rei’s bed, again?) and then tilted his head back so that he could view the clock at the head of the bed. “What time is it?” he asked in the middle of squinting to view the numbers.

Rei pushed his glasses up.

Something clicked.

“Nagisa,” Rei said, rushing to get the words out before the idea could disappear, “have you ever been tested for hyperopea?”

“No, it’s 6:15, what?” Nagisa turned to blink at him again, and then sat up. “Have I – what’s that? Is it one of those things like AHD-something, because my parents don’t approve of the treatments for those kinds of things.” His mouth twisted a little, and Rei’s thought process was momentarily derailed.

“Well, scientifically, the diagnosis and treatment of those conditions is backed up by extensive scientific study and Japan is generally behind the rest of the first world in diagnosing mental health problems – but no, that’s not it.” Rei pushed up his glasses again, in nervous habit. He hoped, very hard, that he wasn’t about to offend his friend. “Is it possible that you’re farsighted?”

In response, Nagisa’s eyes narrowed, as though he could determine the answer to that question by looking at Rei _really hard_. “But I can see you just fine.”

Rei drew in a breath and sat up straighter and _smiled_ , because he _liked_ teaching Nagisa things and not everybody had checked out a stack of books from the library on the various conditions of the eye when they’d had to get eyeglasses in third grade. “Farsightedness is a condition where the cornea is too short, resulting in objects that are close to the eye being out of focus. Mostly commonly this manifests in difficulty reading and headaches from focusing on close objects for extended periods of time, but most schools don’t test for it.” He took a deep breath, and then actually _looked_ at Nagisa’s face. There was no word for his expression except _awed_ , which Rei felt he didn't deserve. “It, It’s only an idea.”

“No, Rei, that’s _awesome_ , that seems, that would explain a lot, you're saying I wouldn't be able to read then, right? Can we test for it? Can we fix it? Would it mean I wouldn't have to read books anymore? How would we test for it?” Nagisa was bouncing slightly now, barely perched on Rei’s bed, his eyes bright. “Would I have to get glasses? I bet I’d look cute in glasses.”

Rei resolutely avoided imagining Nagisa in glasses, since he’d never gotten to see it clearly when it was his _own_ glasses in question. He sifted through Nagisa's onslaught of questions and picked out the relevant ones.  “Well, you’d just have to ask your parents to take you to an optometrist in order to get it formally tested, but if you like we can informally test it quite easily right now.”

“Yeah? Like an experiment?” Nagisa bounced more. He was almost leaping up into the air with excess energy.

“Somewhat like that, yes.” Scooting forward to the edge of his chair in preparation for the scientific process, Rei outlined, “I’ll slowly approach you while you try to focus on a specific part of me, and you’ll observe when – if – that part goes out of focus. It’ll probably appear slightly blurry or fuzzy.”

“Like how stuff looks when I steal Rei-chan’s glasses?”

Rei snorted with laughter despite himself. “Yes. Exactly like that.”

“Okay!” Nagisa scooted forward again, barely on the bed anymore.

“You have to stay still,” Rei instructed, and then got up and faced Nagisa fully. “Are you focused?”

“Yup,” Nagisa said, very clearly focusing on Rei’s nose. He was squinting slightly.

“Don’t squint,” Rei added. “It makes the muscles in your eye tighten. That's likely the cause behind your headaches.”

“Oooh.” Nagisa’s eyes relaxed, went wide and liquid, and Rei cleared his throat and focused on the top of Nagisa’s head instead. He started walking forward with no response for the first few steps, and he started wondering if maybe his hypothesis had been wrong. Farsightedness often went undetected because it wasn’t as dramatic as nearsightedness, though, so he kept moving forward. When he was standing about a foot from Nagisa, he forced himself to look down at Nagisa’s face. Nagisa was grinning, his eyes open and relaxed and focused just off of Rei’s eyes – on his nose, probably, and definitely not on his lips. Definitely.

Rei’s breathing was intentionally, perfectly steady, because if Nagisa noticed or _commented on_ how Rei was blushing and how his breath wanted to speed up and his heart was beating faster from just _walking towards_ Nagisa, he was quite possibly going to die.

“Anything?” Rei asked, hopeful.

“No,” Nagisa said, sadly. “I mean, I don’t think so? You don’t look blurry at all or anything. Does that mean I’m not?” He sounded so disappointed that Rei pushed past his discomfort.

“Not necessarily,” Rei said. “It could still be – here, keep focusing on me.” He looked down and met Nagisa’s eyes, which was a mistake, because Nagisa looked so _hopeful_ and he couldn’t look away, he couldn't. His heart rate accelerated. He _knew_ his cheeks were burning. He kept Nagisa’s eyes and leaned down, slowly, trying to focus on keeping a focus on him to see if his eyes went out of focus and not on how this motion was almost like he was leaning down to – to –

“ _Oh_ ,” Nagisa said softly, and Rei’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh my gosh, Rei, you do, you’re blurry, your eyes are a little blurry, I can see it!” In one heart-stopping motion Nagisa leaped up and threw his arms around Rei. A rush of insane and unnecessary disappointment rushed in along with the usual giddiness of Nagisa touching him, and Rei stood there, blinking at the wall over his bed as Nagisa clung to him. “Rei-chan is so smart! Is that why reading gives me a headache then?”

Rei made a noise that was supposed to be a reply but was actually a choked noise of panic. “Y – yes, probably, exactly. It’s easily fixed with glasses.”

Nagisa dropped away but didn’t remove his arms, meaning that his face was still _so close_ to Rei’s.  “Rei-chan is _brilliant_.”

Rei looked away and hoped, irrationally, that Nagisa’s vision was bad enough that he couldn’t see how badly Rei was blushing. Or that he somehow didn't notice, or that fate just decided to strike him down where he stood. “It really was just logical.”

He didn't mind how Nagisa spent the rest of the day looking at Rei like he'd hung the world, though.

* * *

 

Two weeks later the door to Rei’s room _exploded_ inward in a flurry of noise and movement, and Rei didn’t even jump, because that was Nagisa’s customary method of entry. “Rei! Rei-chan, I have something to show you!”

“Nagisa, _please_ knock before you come in,” Rei said, instead of replying, because Nagisa was obviously going to show him either way.

“Rei-chan  _look_ ,” Nagisa said, and dropped his backpack on Rei’s bed to rummage in it and pull out and obviously new (although already scuffed, and possibly smudged with chocolate) glasses case. He opened it and pulled out a pair of pink frames which he slid onto his face. “Look! Aren’t they cute?”

They were _very_ cute. They matched Nagisa’s eyes better than Rei’s glasses did, and the frames brought out the roundness of his face, making him look even younger rather than more mature. Nagisa rushed over to Rei and immediately brought his face close again, spawning a brief moment of panic in Rei before he realized that Nagisa was just examining this face. “Oh my gosh, Rei, this is so weird, I can see your _pores_.”

Rei coughed. “That’s – not beautiful.”

“No, Rei’s, it’s _awesome_ , look at me!” Nagisa aligned Rei’s face so that he could look at it directly and got _so_ close, frighteningly close. “Oh my god, your eyes are so _cool_ , why didn’t you ever tell me? There’s so many colors in them, that’s the _best_ , Rei-chan should wear contact lenses so that everyone can see them better.”

“Contact lenses can be harmful to your eyes over time,” Rei said, instead of responding to _any of that_ , which he didn’t feel physically capable of. He couldn’t look away from Nagisa, and his voice had slipped into something lower, almost a murmur, except he couldn’t be _murmuring_ at Nagisa, that was clearly the wrong word.

“But think how beautiful you’d look,” Naigsa said, because Nagisa knew how to get to him, every time. His face was barely six inches from Rei’s and Rei wasn’t, Rei wasn’t _breathing_.

One of the things Rei had never spoken about regarding pole vaulting was that it had never been _entirely_ theory-based. Most of it was, of course; air speed, angle of force, length of pole, all adding up to essentially a real-world geometry problem. The consistency of it appealed to Rei, but that wasn’t all there was to it. Even on the most calculated of jumps, even when every bit of the launch was charted to the last degree, it was never going to be all math. There was still always a moment, just as you let go of the pole and spread your limbs, when there was no pole, no math, nothing but open air around you.

You had to let go and have faith that you would _fly_.

Rei let go, and closed the last inches of space between them, and kissed Nagisa.

Their glasses immediately clacked together painfully, causing Nagisa to yelp and pull backwards. Rei was immediately filled with mortification so intense that it seemed likely to be fatal. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, it was just – “

“No, no, Rei-chan, shut up, shut up, come back here,” Nagisa said, and then kissed _him_ , which was so far outside the realm of possible events that it took Rei a moment to register that that was, in fact, what was happening.

Their glasses were still pressing together, which hurt a little, actually, but Nagisa’s lips were soft and the hand that had grabbed Rei’s shoulder was shaking slightly, and Rei had the odd sensation of being completely filled up with butterflies. He entertained, briefly, the idea that he actually was going to be the first recorded case of death by emotional whiplash.

“Rei?” Nagisa said softly, pulling back, except that still didn’t work, because somehow their glasses had gotten tangled together, tugging both of them off their faces. Rei caught them, and Nagisa broke down into giggles, suddenly, pressing his face into Rei’s shoulder.

Rei coughed, slightly. Shifted. “I’m sorry, that – was not very beautiful – “

“No it was _perfect_ ,” Nagisa said, into his shoulder, all in one breath. He settled himself down in Rei’s lap, a solid, wonderful weight, and took both of their glasses from Rei’s grasp.  “It was definitely beautiful, Rei, come here.” He set Rei’s glasses on the desk and then, deliberately, placed his own glasses back on his face before turning back to Rei.

Nagisa’s eyes were shining, and completely focused on Rei’s. “Hi,” Nagisa said, a little shy and a _lot_ giddy.

“Hello,” Rei said, uncomfortably, and then jumped a little when Nagisa chased the word back into his mouth with another kiss. He felt he deserved some _warning_ before that (although he supposed he hadn’t extended Nagisa the same courtesy) because every contact between them felt like it was conducting an electrical current. Except for the part where Nagisa’s glasses were still digging into his brow. He reached up to remove them, and blinked in confusion when Nagisa’s hand snapped up to stop him.

“Wait, wait!” Nagisa exclaimed, and then laughed at the look at Rei’s face. “No, just.” He dropped Rei’s hand and pressed his forehead to Rei’s, which was uncomfortable, but with only one pair of glasses involved instead of two, it wasn’t too bad. “I just want to be able to see you when I do this.”

And then Nagisa kissed him, for the – third? fourth? how could Rei already be losing count, he wanted to document every instance of this impossible phenomena so he could analyze it, record it, immortalize it –

while Nagisa stared into Rei’s eyes as they kissed, as though doing his own kind of memorization, and, well.

Far be it from Rei to not allow Nagisa to see everything he ever wanted to see.


End file.
